Sunday, 29 December 2013

Hard to Swallow

Just started reading Hard to Swallow: Hard-Core Pornography on Screen, edited by Gail Dines and Darren Kerr.

The introductory chapter includes this howler, on Paul Schrader's Hardcore:

"In this film, starring Rod Steiger, a morally upright evangelical preacher pursues his daughter when she runs away to the decadent west coast of the US, only to turn up in a porn movie. The plot takes us on a journey through the LA porn industry, in which all those he encounters are either damaged, or despicable, and wholly deserving of the beatings Steiger’s character dishes out."

But it's not Steiger, rather George C. Scott.

How can academics get away with such basic factual errors?

Then, in discussing the biases of a documentary, Porn Shutdown, about the impact of a HIV outbreak on the LA porn industry:

"That Porn Shutdown, in contrast, simply sidesteps James suggests once more that there is no complexity to men’s involvement in porn, nothing enigmatic – or, for that matter, visually interesting – about the male porn-performer."

Female performer Jessica Dee, one of those who contracted HIV, was not a major figure in this documentary, So was there nothing interesting about the European porn-performer either?